While I’m not a big fan of button combo/mashing types of action games I went a head and bought Batman: Arkham City on Black Friday for $28 based solely on the overwhelming praise it got. When I say “button mashing’ this doesn’t necessarily fall into that category, but anything that has any sort of combo multiplier to me is somewhat of a button masher. Doesn’t matter how many moves you can do, at the end of the day you are still making quick combos and mashing the buttons to an extent. IT’s not all tap X X X X X over and over type, but it is mashing at a higher level.

The gameplay and combat in this game are kind of on the level of Ninja Gaiden, but with not as many moves. More like a Hybrid between that and say God of War. Unrealistic and over the top combat more or less.

This won’t be as long review as I normally because I don’t consider this game to have that many features that need to be addressed. Combat of this style doesn’t need to be detailed as much as something else like an RPG, or even something like Dark/Demon’s Souls as there aren’t that many varieties and enemies aren’t varied enough to give you a sense that you have to strategize much when fighting them. Same tactics apply to most of the enemies and you fight large swarms of them with counters and combo moves. buy morgan silver dollars

Batman of course comes with many gadgets which make fighting a bit more interesting and fun, but honestly after several hours I was pretty tired of fighting groups of enemies. IF you are into combo multipliers and fighting large groups of enemies with seamless combat you won’t be disappointed. I just don’t find the depth of that combat intriguing which is why I tend not to play these types of games specifically for it. I’m also not a fan of fighting games in general so you can kind of see where I am on this type of combat.

The world of Arkham City is small to medium sized, but really nothing huge. You traverse with your basic bat skills of gliding, using your bat grapple to increase speeds, dives to take out enemies in aerial assaults, and scale building with the grapple to quickly get to the top. It should never take you more than a minute r two to traverse from one side of the map to the other if that is your only goal. If you want to fight or search for side items obviously it will take longer.

The story is after Arkham Asylum in which Arkham City is closed off to house all the worst prisoners of Gotham, and a few political prisoners that probably shouldn’t even be there. The game gives you the Batman classic like Penguin, Joker, Two Face, and a few others that make short appearances.

The Riddler plays a prominent role as the master of side quests more or less. In fact this may be the most depth the game offers in retrospect. The Riddler has hidden a few hundred “trophies” around the city that unlock more side missions with him as well as getting to him in the end. HE’s not a main story character, but offers a ton of gameplay time. These trophies aren’t just search and pick up either. Each of them is tied to sort of a puzzle in which you need to figure out how to get to them. This can be very fun, and can offer a challenge to the brain to figure out just what you need to do to get your hands on them. I found this to be a very good addition to the game.

In addition to the trophies he also has some of his patented riddles in which you need to search the city for the clues he gives. Much easier than the trophies, and sort of poorly put together overall. Between the two you must find 400 total to finish off his quests. This probably consisted of at least 80% of my playtime overall.

There are other side-quests with minor characters and villains. Some tie in with the main story, but others are just side stories you don’t have to complete. Of course if you want to get 100% you must do them.

Getting Platinum in this game is serious business, and VERY time consuming. Besides all the side-quests and actual story mode you have other tasks required to get this. You have to get through New Game +, which is much more difficult than the standard playthrough. You start fully loaded with your gadgets and skills, but enemies are much tougher. Also, there are challenge rooms unlocked from the Riddler as well. Boy are there challenge rooms. Nearly 100 in all. Rooms where you have to fight swarms of enemies and get high scores to earn the 3 tokens for each room. I absolutely LOATHE challenge rooms in video games, and frankly this is likely the reason I will never Platinum this game. Like I said earlier this type of combat isn’t fun to me so having to do it for tens of hours over and over is just not gonna happen. IF you enjoy it, then this game is for you because there are so many of these rooms even the most hardcore challenge room player may say it is too much.

One of the greatest parts of this game, however are the enemies and their conversations you can overhear while roaming the city. Everywhere you go they talk about some hilarious things. Either their crew boss (ie. The Joker, Penguin, etc.), or just random weirdness about the city, or general hilarious worldy things. It is worth it to play the game again just so you can listen to these conversations. It offers a nice depth to the city and makes travelling around much less tedious.

While this may be a slightly negative review, this is a very good game. I’m just not a superhero, nor a Batman fanatic so I don’t give it a free excitement boost just for it. If you are a Batman, or superhero fan I would not hesitate to say that this may be the best superhero game ever made. Even if you aren’t a big fan it is still a good quality game with lots of playtime for those that have OCD and want to collect things. For combat challenge fans it’s also loaded with fighting.

Overall, I find the game to get tedious and repetitive over the long run, but it is well designed and fun overall. Many claim it to be the Game of the Year, and it has actually won the award in a few places. Mine was Dark Souls (click for 2 part review) obviously, but this is deserving to be in the conversation. Due to it being a bit repetitive for me I am going to give it a SOLID 8/10, but I’m sure many of you would rate it higher.

P.S. I forgot to mention that retail copies, for the PS3 at least contain the Catwoman DLC code. She was a GREAT addition and looks amazing. Adds another couple hours of gameplay as well so it’s a nice touch. The DLC for this game I think is a rip off since most are just cosmetic skins, or the ugh challenge rooms which we clearly didn’t need more of. It sounds like some single player quest content will be coming later, but considering that I think I know what it is based on I’m not that excited about it. If you play the game and saw some side-quests end you know what I mean.

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For Part 1 Click here

Took me a bit longer than expected to write part 2, but I was eagerly awaiting the new Patch 1.05 to see what kind of changes were made. They were quite extensive so I would just direct you to this thread at GameFAQs.com if you are interested.

The patch really changed the game quite a bit. It nerfed a lot of equipment, changed how weapons scale to make the game more balanced, increased the amount of experience (souls) enemies drop, and greatly improved matchmaking for the online components.

While I could go more in depth on the single player experience I think I may have covered a bit too much in part 1. I mentioned most of the mechanics of the game as well as how to traverse this world. What I did not mention at all was the story…hmmmm…the story.

If you played Demon’s Souls you already know what you are in for in terms of story. This is not a CGI cutscene JRPG that will show you 10 minute scenes talking about all the characters. There might not even be 5 cutscenes in the entire game that I can recall. IF you were a fan of walkign 10 feet to see a cutscene in games like FFXIII and this is your top priority in a game look elsewhere. Immediately.

Like Demon’s Souls the story of Dark Souls is woven into the lore of the world. It is not spelled out for you. Sure there is a general overview of some objective your character is supposed to do, but honestly you will probably forget about this the second you get control of your player. These games do everything unique. Not just the online experience, but also the story. The history, the lore, and even direction comes from many places. You get some background info and slight direction from NPCs that you can actually talk to, but mostly, the lore and the background is found in the item descriptions themselves.

Every item you pick up, every weapon, armor, boss soul, etc. has a tale on it. It may not be in depth, but combining sets, searching out areas, and piecing things together weaves a very strange and interesting view of the lands you travel. Let’s just say that the story is yours to figure out and it won’t actually spell anything out for you. It’s more about the characters that inhabit the world than some grand story. When you pick up sword you read its description in your inventory and you have a piece of the lore. Some things build on others. Some have nothing to do with it. The items tell stories of the people that wield them, that they were made for, or who they worked for. This is about gameplay, not a simple story, but if you take the time to read all of your items you may be immersed in a complex and interesting world you didn’t know was even there.

Let’s get into the online component of the game. Many things are similar to Demon’s Souls here, but there are also a lot of additions. As long as you are playing online you can see messages that other players leave that offer help, or they are just trolling you for their own amusement. You can rank these messages up , or down. You also see the ghosts of other players in their worlds wandering around at times to make you feel less alone. Their bloodstains litter the grounds in areas and if you select them it will show you a brief clip of how they died to help you avoid the same fate.

As we talked about earlier, Humanity is one of the great needs to be able to interact in PvP battles, and many other things. If you are not in Human form you can play online all you want and never have to fear an invasion by another player. If you do play in Human form, however the world is a much scarier place. At anytime a player from another world can invade you and you must fight to your death. Winner gains souls (EXP) and more Humanity among other things. If you lose as the invaded you are sent back to your last bonfire, but you keep all your souls and Humanity (you do lose Human form, however). The Invader is just sent back to their own world with little loss. You can only be invaded in an area where you have not yet killed the boss.

There is a good reason to be in Human form if you are not really interested in being an invader. While being in human form still leaves you open to invasion it allows you to summon other players as phantoms to help you out. They can help dispatch invaders, but typically you will summon them to help you defeat an area boss.

You can help fight bosses for other players as well. In fact, this is probably a good time to bring up Covenants. It would take far too long to go into each one in detail, but I will give a basic background on them and their main purposes. For in depth info on these look at the Dark Souls Wiki

As I mentioned you can co-op to help other players beat invaders, or to help them through a level and defeat a boss. There are actually 3 covenants that are highly favorable to being a helper rather than an invader. The Way of White, Princess’s Guard, and Warrior’s of Sunlight (nicknamed Sunbros by most players now). These 3 covenants give you more dedicated access to co-op. All 3 make it easier to find another player to co-op with if they are in one of these covenants. So if you are looking to co-op you would do well to join one of these covenants.

There are 6 other covenants that you can join. Most of these are designed to be a PvP covenant. Where you are to invade, or “protect” your domains. Either that, or you are used to hunt down sinners, steal humanity, and even change their worlds to Darkness. There is way too much detail of these other 6 covenants to go into, but let’s just say that you can be in covenants that are serious about PvP, and you can be in a n00b covenant like the Forest Hunters and gangbang other bad players only once in a while finding out someone is Twinking (stayed low level and got a ton of good equipment to troll new players) in the area and you get demolished. They may make you rage and reach for your medication carts .

In addition to the PvP and co-op aspects of these covenants, they all have levels and rewards. Each rank up as you perform the required tasks, obtain items that those you defeat will drop, etc. You start at +0 and can go up to +3. Some covenants offer new spells, miracles, and even weapons you cannot get otherwise. One offers a shortcut if you offer up enough humanity. The Gravelord Covenant allows you to turn 3 other player’s worlds dark and have them come to your world and hunt you so they can fix their own worlds. There is even a covenant that can turn you into a DRAGONOID and can breath fire! Yeah this is kick ass.

Everyone may have been anticipating Skyrim this fall, and most casual players will insist that it is a greater game, but it has absolutely no comparison to this. Only the settings and themes are similar, but Dark Souls is focused on crisp gameplay and challenge, while Skyrim is your choice for a more casual world of exploration and NPC interaction. Both have large open worlds, but are almost nothing alike. Don’t fall into the trap of comparing them as similar games. They are two GREAT games and Dark Souls is for a more hardcore gamer than Skyrim is. If you want something that is more challenging than all the other crap in this casual gaming generation buy Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls. They are like nothing else this gen.

RECOMMENDATION: Must Buy 9.5/10. This is my GOTY. Just like Demon’s Souls was in 2009. We are blessed with a ton of amazing titles this winter, but I call this my favorite among them. Arkham City, Skyrim, Uncharted 3, and Dark Souls are ALL must buy games IMO, but Dark Souls is my GOTY by far.

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Since Demon’s Souls home was the Playstation 3 I went a head and got Dark Souls there as well. It’s something I tend to do once an original game goes multi-platform. Always assume that the developers have more experience with the original platform, and that they have a nostalgic love for the ones that gave them their original chance. Japanese games I buy on the PS3 as well since they don’t necessarily want, nor like XBox 360 as it isn’t a widely used console in Japan.

Just to let you know. I have Platinum’d the game, and played through NG++, and played another NG so I have done it all and know this game like the back of my hand. This will be VERY in depth. I will make it into two posts actually I have so much to write. I will try to get both done quickly, but may be a few days before I finish part 2.

That being said, From Software is back at it again with the spiritual successor of Demon’s Souls with another go in Dark Souls. Instead of our fan favorite Atlus being the publisher, we got Namco Bandai (Bamco). This may not seem like much of a big deal, but it appears many think it is. Bamco isn’t exactly known for being loyal to customers once their games are delivered. Fans of Demon’s Souls felt a lot of love after release with regular events on holidays in which we got World Tendency shifts. Nothing spectacular, but it showed that they were keeping up with it. Not to mention that the servers they run have been extended well into 2012 so that people can continue to play online.

Let’s get the server situation and online aspects out of the way first when it comes to Dark Souls. If you played Demon’s Souls you know that this “series” is predominantly a single player game, BUT it mixes in a unique online experience that adds to your single player experience. People take it much further and turn it into online dueling and other things, but the game is designed to be a mostly single player game.

Demon’s Souls online was hosted by a universal server. Meaning that it was run from a central location for each region and everyone played on it. We were split between North America, Europe, etc., but we all played on the server of our region. Dark Souls on the other hand made a significant change here. It is now a P2P system. Many games use this and the benefit of it is that we can always connect online long after the game has gone into its imminent death. On the other hand, we are all stuck with having issues based on the internet connections of users we are connected to. More lag is an obvious issue, but connecting properly has been an early one.

Don’t fear though. A patch has been released that is supposed to improve matchmaking greatly, and is in use already in Japan. Personally, I have had little to no problems finding people to invade, or to summon to fight bosses. So…my experience has been rather good in regards to the online components of the game.

Since I said before that the online component is more of a compliment to the single player component it makes sense that I meld the online aspects into the full review of the single player side. First and foremost you don’t have to play online at all. You can play completely offline and finish the game 100%, AND you can get the Platinum trophy without ever setting foot into the online universe. This game is meant to be an amazing single player experience. Online is there for more fun, and in many cases much more frustration from players way better than you.

Combat is at teh forefront of this series. It is defined as an Action RPG, but the combat excels compared to most other action RPGs that you will play. There is a feeling of actually making contact with enemies, and you feel the weight of your armor, and the weight of your weapons. Swing speed, and contact with enemies is fully realized in the combat system. This is soemthing that is WAY beyond the combat of such games like Dragon Age, Skyrim, etc. (Skyrim, Dragon Age, etc. are nothing like Demon’s Souls. Totally different kinds of games and should really not be compared, but to give you an idea of how different they are I mention combat as that is the glaring difference. These other games focus more on interaction, exploration, and story. Dark Souls focuses on challenge and combat. and exploration in a massive world.) The combat in comparison to these types of RPGs is much more skill base while these are more or less set up for very casual gamers and have very little satisfaction when defeating an enemy or boss. In those games you do not “feel” the combat like in Dark Souls. IT takes skill to survive and it is far from cheap here. You will feel like you won based on your own skills rather than because the enemies are stupid, or you just cheesed them.

Dark Souls changed significantly in many areas compared to Demon’s Souls. While combat mechanics are very close, Dark Souls did add a few new twists to it. More attacks that can be made from rolling, running, and even an awesome falling attack that does massive damage when you drop down on an enemy’s head. Dark Souls also added jumping which comes into play not just to get to new places, but also as an attack option. All of these things are very nice additions to your arsenal.

The world of Dark Souls is immense and amazing. Unlike Demon’s Souls there is no central hub. Sorry Stockpile Thomas and Maiden fans these guys aren’t going to help you this time. You cannot warp back to a central hub and go through the archways to get to a new world. The entire world of Dark Souls is interconnected. It is brilliantly done. While you can get to many areas right off the bat, some areas are not connected to where you start. You must travel through other areas to get to them. There are tons of shortcuts that can be opened, you travel through one are, and you can skip entire areas to get to harder ones. There are even very challenging areas right by the beginning of the game you can wander into that you will likely not be able to handle. The game doesn’t hold your hand here. You really have no idea where to go, but talking to some random NPCs may give you some clues.

Can you get a breather at all? Of course. It would suck pretty hard if you couldn’t right? Instead of a central hp, or archstones to warp around you have Bonfires. Bonfires show up as sort of checkpoints all over the world. They must be lit at first. You need to find them in the area you wander to and you are allowed to rest at them. They aren’t always close, but they are spaced pretty well so you aren’t stuck traversing all the way a crossed the world to get back to where you were. I will go more in depth about Bonfire uses in a little bit.

I need to talk a little bit about some of the aspects of the player and how they travel through the world real quick here. In Demon’s Souls you were either in Soul Form, or you were in normal form. In Soul Form you lost a large portion of your HP, but you could not be invaded by other players online at all, nor could you summon others for help. In Dark Souls the world is run by Humanity. It is basically the souls of the undead. When you have used humanity you find yourself in Human form. This allows you to summon other players to help fight bosses, but also leaves you open to invasions. If you die, you go into Hollow form. Unlike soul form there aren’t any HP drawbacks. So you could go through the entire game in Hollow form online and have very little negative drawbacks for doing so. This should be good news for players that love to see ghosts wandering around, or to read messages from other player s and not fear being invaded constantly. They had you in mind here!

Humanity can be gained in many ways. There is a Humanity meter next to your HP bar that will glow white if you are in Human form already. Grayed out if you are Hollow. You can actually see up to a number of 99 in that meter up top and this is the Humanity you have collected from the world from many ways. Killing a phantom, a human enemy, defeating enough enemies, etc. This is “loose” humanity. You can pick up humanity as an actual item too that you won’t lose if you die. Enemies drop it, you find it as treasures, and a few other ways. This humanity is safe from your death. The “loose” humanity is not. IF you die it will be with all your souls in your bloodstain. Just like Demon’s Souls if you die you leave a bloodstain in the world with all the souls you lost. Dark Souls also keeps your loose humanity there too. If you get back to it before you die again you get them all back, BUT you do not get human form back. Humanity has other uses, but playing the game you will figure it out. Most notably it helps with item drops.

So how the hell do you sue this humanity? This is where we get back to discussing bonfires. At the bonfires you can do many, many things. At each bonfire it refills your health, spell castings, and your Estus flasks (what are those?). The Estus flask is your little potion to refill your health. When you first get to a bonfire you only get 5 Estus Flasks. Humanity changes that. First you need 1 humanity to go from Hollow to Human form if you aren’t already there. Then you can Kindle the fire with more humanity. Each fire can only be kindled once early on before you get a special item that allows you to kindle them all up to 3 times. Each kindle permanently increases the number of Estus flasks you receive by resting there by 5. So after one Kindle you will get 10 flasks every time you rest there. Maximum amount once you get the item to get higher is 20. No, you can’t visit 5 of your bonfires and end up with 99. The most you can get is 20 total, and only if a fire was kindled to give that many. For the early part of the game you never have more than 10. When you use them all they are gone until you rest at a bonfire again. This is how you heal. You can heal with Humanity as an item, or some other rare items, but Estus will be your usual method as the others are rare.

The Bonfire also allows you to store your items after you purchase the bottomless box from a Blacksmith. One you purchase a repair box you can repair your equipment there. Once you buy re-enforcement boxes for weapons and armor you can upgrade even those there! If you need to get it to another level, or class of weapon however you must find a blacksmith to “modify” it. Finally, once you get the Lord Vessel item from a later part of the game you can WARP to other bonfires. Not all, but enough to make life a lot easier on you.

Character building is a bit different this time. You still start the game with a character creation screen, pick a class with stats you like from the stats already assigned, and change their appearance to how you like. This hasn’t really upgraded much, but it is a little better.

Stats have also changed a small amount, and the way that magic is cast has also changed. Your game screen displays your HP and your stamina up at the top still, but MP has completely disappeared. Instead of MP players “Attune” spells that only have certain number of castings between resting. The stat of Attunement which allows you to equip every type of spell (Pyromancy, Miracles, and Magic) is now only there for increasign these slots. Rather than having to upgrade Intelligence for more Magic slots, or Faith for more Miracle slots, you do it wall at Attunement for all 3.

Another significant change is that there is no longer an Item Load. You can carry everything you ever find in the game with no regards to their weight. Eventually you can buy a Bottomless Box to store this stuff, and make it easier to navigate your inventory on the road, but you don’t ahve to as there is no penalty for carrying a ton of loot. Equip Load is still present, however. This is the weight of all the weapons, and armor you have equipped to use. In Demon’s Souls having less than 50% of your total equip load allowed you to roll at full speed. In Dark Souls you can still roll under 50%, but the max speed is under 25%. The closer you get to that 50% burden the slower you roll. Above it you can barely roll at all and are a sitting duck. We have many more options for equip load in this game, however to make speed faster so it is not as bad as it sounds. Over 25% isn’t bad, it’s just not as good as under 25%.

The list of stats are as follow:

Vitality-Level of HP
Attunement-Controls number of attunement slots (magic you can equip)
Endurance-Controls Equip Load and Stamina
Dexterity-Required to meet weapon requirements in some cases. Speeds up spell casting. Sacles DEX weapons.
Strength-Used for weapon requirements. Used for scaling STR Weapons (may be another passive ability we have not yet determined)
Resistance-This raises resistances and increases defenses more than the other stats do. They all increase defense every level, but this does more. It is the most useless stat and considered one not to be upgraded. Equivalent of to the value of “Luck” in Demon’s Souls.
Intelligence-This is used to cast sorceries. Magic Spells have minimums that must be met to be used. It also scales their damage as well as scaling of weapons that use INT scaling.
Faith-Does everything Intelligence does EXCEPT it works for MIRACLES and FTH based weapons instead.

You may have noticed that nothing mentions Pyromancy in the stats above. That is because Pyro spells aren’t boosted by stats. They are boosted by upgrading the Pyro Glove. This is much like a catalyst or a talisman, except it is for pyro casting. Any player can use Pyro spells. This makes for an interesting set of offensive and defensive skills for all players to enjoy even if they are going through the game as a pure melee build. Some of the spells are very useful. It has a spell called Iron Flesh that allows you to increase your defense incredibly high at the expense of slow movement. It has poison spray, and of course a large collection of fire spells on top of others. It is outclassed at higher levels by Magic typically, but only if you develop those stats. This gives you a much larger arsenal with minimal loss to your other stats.

Weapon equips are much like Demon’s Souls as well. You can equip a weapon in both hands, as well as equip 2 reserve weapons in both hands that you can toggle between. You can dual wield a couple battle axes, have a shield and sword, a greatsword with a catalyst to cast spells, etc.

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Weapons AND Armor are able to be upgraded this time. Finding Blacksmiths throughout the world allows you to not just upgrade along regular paths, but to change to many different weapon builds. Weapons upgrade in a similar way to Demon’s Souls, but it is simplified a bit. Each level only uses one size of stone rather than the 1-4 different sizes stones at a time compared to Demon’s Souls. The biggest change however is the addition of new upgrade paths. Most notably Lightning! An element that was completely absent in Demon’s Souls is in full force in Dark Souls. Weapons and magic can utilize this element. Weapons upgraded along this path are quite formidable, and have very low equip requirements to create them. They are basically the cream of the crop at low levels of your character build.

Scaling is done with the 4 stats of Strength, Dexterity, Faith, and Intelligence. Each of these stats is used for a certain type of weapon, but some weapon types scale with more than one just as Demon’s did. Before the upcoming patch scaling on most of these weapons was a bit unbalanced compared with lightning. At higher levels it is surpassed, but the new patch has upped the scaling of other weapon paths to make them much more of a threat and easier to outclass the lightning classes. Having characters built along a certain stat is still very much in the game here, and maybe even more than Demon’s Souls. We just don’t know everything about it yet to have the best builds figured out without the patch.

Armor upgrades along the same lines, but only down a straight path. Upgrading armor allows it to increase many defenses as well as resistances to poison, bleed, and even curse (very nasty. You do not want this to happen, but there are uses for it). Upgrading armor is quite helpful to give you higher defense on lower weight equipment. Defense isn’t exactly the most important part of armor, however.

That would be Poise. Poise is a stat that shows up on heavier armor. It allows you to take more hits, and swing through more hits before being stunned. It makes it so blocking with a shield or weapon will cost you less stamina. This is by far the most important stat on armor. Other than one ring, poise can only be gained by wearing armor. Unlike Demon’s Souls where many would wear a lot of lighter armor that had good defense, in Dark Souls the light armor has no poise. While it has defense, and it can help stop some damage, poise is by far more important. It is quite the challenge to maximize your poise, keep under 50% equip load, and still be able to move fairly quickly. This is why the Endurance stat is once again very important. Not just for stamina, but for the equip load. Higher poise means you can get hit more without causing you to be stunned. You can heal through attacks if it is high enough with an Estus flask. If you choose to go light, you better be nimble and not get hit.

That is enough for Part 1. Much more to cover. I will discuss some more of the single player and go in depth on the online features in Part 2. Including the addition of Covenants!

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The first game this gen that I ever bought was GTA IV. Really it was this game, or Final Fantasy XIII that I was waiting for to buy one of this gen’s consoles. I went a head and bought a PS3 a bit after this game came out and this game the same day thinking I really didn’t need anything else.

At the time I did not like it much. I thought it looked pretty decent, although I couldn’t get the settings right on a 1080i HDTV where it wasn’t jaggy as hell. No big deal. Then playing the game it became quite obvious that this wasn’t the GTA of the past.

First thing that probably popped out to most people was the driving mechanics. They were revamped a bit and felt much more difficult to get used to. At the time I hated it. I expected to jump right in and be able to drive like a beast.

Then we have the new wanted system where you have to “outrun” the cops instead of just going and standing in a alley for a few seconds. Besides that it seemed that the cops were much more of a nuisance in GTA IV than they had been before. This game was starting to be way too realistic.

Those two things alone I think put me off the game for quite a while. I didn’t really feel like I was having “fun” playing it. Never could you really just go off and just kill everyone around for 30 minutes and live through it. Then having cops pop up at the edge of the wanted circle it just got to a point where i was having little fun.

So…a few days with my new PS3 and this game I am somewhat disappointed and ready to throw this game into the composter. I go out and buy Fallout 3 and find it to be incredible. First impressions compared to GTA IV were off the charts. Nevermind that after 70 hours or so it became a glitchfest and chugging piece of crap. It was more free than GTA was it seemed and I didn’t have to spend 50% of my time running away from cops.

Fast forward about 2 years, nothing of interest available in the new game market for a couple months, and a 1080p HDTV this time. I decided to give GTA IV a try once more. This of course is after playing Red Dead Redemption several times already so I am much more familiar with the controls obviously. Easily picked it up and was good to go.

Something changed between when I first played GTA IV and now. A lot of the controls were actually closer to things that everything else this gen had incorporated. Things that are definitely different from the XBox and PS2 days.

This time I was in awe of the game. I didn’t think the game was bad the first time, but I wasn’t particularly impressed at all. After a couple years of playing everything from Bioshock to Just Cause 2 to Dead Space, I realized this game was a masterpiece.

I couldn’t believe I disliked this game before. Now I’m actually upset that I missed the prime when the multiplayer was jumping. The city in this game is by far the best in any game I have ever played. It may not have the best graphics of any city, but the “feeling” of the city is so perfect that I can’t honestly say there are many games I have played where I felt as immersed. Just take a cab ride and not skip it. The way everything on the streets look from the people to the lighting is outstanding.

Maybe this gen changed the way I look at games. Maybe the games like Fallout, Dragon Age, etc. gave me a new appreciation for how weak storytelling generally is. Maybe it just took getting used to the controls for this gen. Maybe it just took me to mature a little. I don’t know, but I have a new found respect for this game going back to it. It may be the only game that has ever changed my view so much with a replay years later. It is definitely not outdated either. It could come out today and still be a top game.

Originally I would ahve given this game probably an 8/10. Showing that I knew it was technically a good game, and well designed. Just wasn’t fun. Now? I’d probably say this is a 10/10 game. At worst a 9.5/10 since I almost never consider any game a 10/10.

So…if you were wanting the next GTA: San Andreas and didn’t really give this game the chance it deserved the first time try it out again with a couple years experience of this gen. It really is an amazing game.

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Coming up are some games that are the absolute vice for me. Thee huge, open world games make me forget about everything I want to do. The only real issue between Skyrim and Dark Souls is that they are coming out within a few weeks of each other. Something that will make a bit of a problem when I play games like this for months alone.

While there are a lot of other big name action games coming out such as Uncharted 3, Gears 3, Resistance 3, etc., but at the end of the day the best games coming seem to be some sort of Action RPG, or just plain RPGs. The only real choice for me, however is whether to give Skyrim a whirl on a console for the first time, or just plain go out and buy a new PC to run it better.

Dark Souls and Skyrim though are the two and only games I have on my wishlist at the moment. I pre-ordered Dark Souls from Amazon about 2 months ago when they had the free upgrade to the Collector’s Edition ($89.99) which comes with a fancy box, game guide, soundtrack, and some other nerd stuff like art books.

Skyrim I am still deciding what version I want, and may wait until after release since I will be playing Dark Souls anyways. The other issue with Bethesda games is that after playing Fallout: New Vegas I have very little trust in their ability to put out a finely tuned product. Certainly the early pre-patch data will be engulfed in glitches so waiting a month or so may be the way to go. It has a new engine this time though so we may be getting something that is just much better and made for the current generation rather than a rehash like the Fallout games were from the Oblivion engine.

Dark Souls

What can I say about Demon’s Souls at this point that hasn’t been said? It was by far the biggest, and frankly best surprise for this gen in gaming in my opinion. To this point I may say it is my favorite game this generation still. Being a unique experience in the current high graphics, easy to play, casual gamer era, it was a breath of fresh air. Dark Souls is promised to be even more difficult than Demon’s Souls, although it is not considered a “sequel”. More of a “spiritual Successor” as Demon’s Souls was to the King’s Field series. Regardless it is pretty much a sequel if you were a fan in the gameply and style areas.

The world is supposed to be more open than Demon’s Souls with no internal hub and areas separated. If you can see mountains int he distance you can walk to them according to the developers. You will be saving at fires that you will be able to place. The online factor I am not quite sure of the overall specifics although we have seen several players chilling around a fire beacon.

Gameplay looks very similar to Demon’s Souls and the movements are very close from the gameply I have seen, and you can see in the video below. Definite changes of course, but I say that Demon’s Souls was so good that you didn’t have to do a lot anyways except clean it up a little. Some of the animations, targeting, etc.

Elder Scrolls: Skyrim

I didn’t buy ES IV: Oblivion until almost a year after it was released on PC. I did buy it on the PC, however so I was able to enjoy the array of amazing player mods that were released unlike our console brothers who only played there. Word is that the consoles will allow mods for Skyrim this time! Something that was a huge factor in whether I would buy it for the PC, or PS3/360. Now I am in a bit of a dilemma, although the PC version will force me to buy a new PC so it may not be that much of a dilemma .

The video below shows a vast world. We have seen a fight with a giant dragon in video clips where it is said this is actual combat, although I believe that it is more of a cutscene with a finishing animation than actually fighting for what we keep being shown. Still it looks awesome and different and more intense than any Oblivion battle ever was.

They have changed all the leveling and character building once again. Getting rid of things like acrobatics and the other annoying and useless skill s that we would upgrade by leaving our man swimming in a pond for 2 hours just to get their speed and stamina up. That is of course you didn’t have a PC version where you could just hit “`” and cheat in the console. Hopefully this game doesn’t make it as tedious and boring to improve skills and not make us want to cheat every time we play.

Nothing more fun than these games IMO. Huge open worlds, with tons of random quests out and about. Weapon searches, and best of all player mods. These are the kind of games that save you money. You don’t need anything else for months after buying these enormous games. About the only games I will be buying after this comes out are the bathroom variety for my iPod Touch, or your ipod nano 8g.

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